25 May 2021 13:30 Russia's Chumakov Center plans to start Phase 3 trials of CoviVac vaccine in several weeks - general director MOSCOW. May 25 (Interfax) - Phase 3 clinical trials of the Covid-19 whole-virion vaccine CoviVac may begin in a couple of weeks, according to Aidar Ishmukhametov, general director of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Chumakov Federal Center for Research and Development of Immune-and-Biological Products, the vaccine's developer. "It is up to the Health Ministry to make this decision. We submitted [documents to start Phase 3 trials of the CoviVac vaccine], we were asked additional questions, as it usually happens, and we answered them. We are now awaiting its decision. I think that we will start Phase 3 trials of CoviVac in a week or two," Ishmukhametov said in an interview published in the Izvestia newspaper on Tuesday.